4. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

By Lev Grossman and Richard LacayoThursday, Dec. 12, 2002

As a rule, novels are supposed to end when the heroine is brutally raped and murdered. Then again, a delicate, devastatingly sad literary novel isn't supposed to knock Tom Clancy off the bestseller lists this year, either. Sebold's novel follows a murdered suburban teenager into heaven, from which celestial vantage point she observes the aftermath of her tragedy. It's a luminous, lyrical performance that hits the heart like a sledgehammer. Rules, like hearts, and sales records, were made to be broken.